Virtual Mode

CHAPTER 6—PRIMA

THE world seemed unchanged. He stood on the dais, within the marked circle beside the castle. But the Cyng of Pwer was gone.

He stepped out of the circle, in the direction that seemed proper. A plume-bird took wing, startled. Darius was startled too; that bird had appeared from nowhere.

No, not nowhere. Darius was the one who had stepped into its reality. The geography might be so similar as to be identical, and the animal life too—but men and creatures did not follow the same schedules here as in his own reality. So a bird had been roosting here. He had better move on before the local Cyng of Pwer spied him and asked him what he was doing here. He didn’t know how many others there might be like him, in these very similar Modes.

He walked on toward the rim of the disk. He hesitated, then brought out his personal icon. He squatted and drew the crude likeness of the dais of the Castle of Hlahtar. He activated the icon and jumped it to that likeness.

He made it, but it was a gut-wrenching experience. Evidently his sympathetic magic was not well attuned to this Mode.

He gazed at the castle. It looked the same, but now he doubted that it had the same personnel. If it did, could he meet himself? That promised only complication! So he decided not to approach it; he would get well away from anything similar to what he knew. In fact, he should get away from the dais region too, because if his magic stopped working, he would be stranded on a dais.

He knew where there was a lowland region that was almost level. It was almost uninhabited; an assortment of wild animals roamed there, and that was about all. His sword should protect him from any predators, if he remained alert.

He stepped his icon there, and immediately arrived, his gut further wrenched. But now he had another problem: he did not know where to go. Pwer had told him that there should be a feel to the right direction, and he had felt it at first. Now he did not. He had gone off the path.

But he should be able to pick it up again. He turned slowly around, concentrating, and felt a faint tingle in one direction. That should be the way to go.

He stepped in that direction. Nothing seemed to change. He continued, and saw an animal: a big reptile, one of the dragons that roamed this region. Some of them could do enough magic to blow fire, but they were no threat to a man who could do magic to douse fire, or simply conjure the creatures elsewhere.

He continued walking, and the feeling of rightness grew stronger. Good enough; he could reach the proper path without having to struggle with the impassable terrain in the vicinity of the daises.

Could he conjure himself along the path across Modes? A moment’s thought made him decide not to try. Probably he had done that when he conjured himself before, which was why he had the gut wrenches. The Modes were close together; Pwer had indicated that about three paces should take him from one to another. He had conjured himself many leagues, so must have crossed hundreds of Modes. In so doing, he had almost lost the path. As he progressed on the path, his magic would fade, so it was best not to depend on it.

Were it otherwise, he might have conjured himself all the way to Colene’s Mode, and fetched her back immediately. But he knew he could do no magic there. He needed to forge a path by foot, so he could bring her back the same way.

He continued until he reached the strongest sense of the path. As he did, the terrain changed around him. The plain became a ragged slope, but not as rough as in his home Mode. He could manage.

He had been traveling slantwise, as it were, across Modes. Now he crossed them directly, following the path, and Pwer was right: about three paces took him across. He could tell because though the terrain did not change much if at all, the vegetation changed somewhat and the animal life could shift abruptly, as the first plume-bird had shown.

He passed a pair of ridges between which nestled a small clear lake. He approached it cautiously, alert for danger, because such water was apt to be a drinking hole for animals. Indeed, odd creatures did appear and disappear as he crossed Modes, while the lake remained constant. This brought home to him the fact that though for him each Mode was only three paces wide, he saw the whole of it while he was in it. The lake was in each Mode, so appeared constant, but every three paces it was actually a different lake he saw. He was not approaching the lake he saw, but the lake in the Mode he would stand in when he got there.

He did get there, and there were no animals. There were fish in the water, however, so it was probably clean. He lay down and drank deeply, then filled his water bag. Water was precious!

He stepped into the next Mode. There was a wrenching in his stomach and a lightening of his water bag. What had happened?

He stepped back. There were two wet places on the ground beside the lake where water had evidently been recently spilled. And his bag was low, and he was thirsty.

Then he remembered Pwer’s warning: he could not assimilate the stuff of other Modes. Not rapidly. He could not carry anything with him across Modes except what was of his own Mode or the Mode of one of the other anchors. He could eat or drink the substance of another Mode, but it would not remain with him when he departed it, unless he gave it time to be assimilated by his body. It seemed that it was the isolation of the molecules amidst many more of his own molecules that caused them to become detached from their Mode and to join his. This could happen fairly rapidly with water, and more slowly with food.

He drank again, more moderately, and waited an hour. Then he resumed his journey, and the water did not disappear from his stomach. It had already done that, to be distributed elsewhere in his body, and was captive.

Suppose he ran out of water? Then he would have to remain in a single Mode long enough to drink a lot of it, urinate it out, and filter it through sand to make it pure. That pure water would be of his system, and could travel with him in his bag. It was not the most pleasant mechanism, but necessary. Food was harder; he would not have time to excrete it and grow new plants from it, so he carried what he needed with him. He could mix it with water, expanding its mass, and it would last a good length of time.

He moved on, and now the lake was left behind him, as constant as before, while plants and animals flickered in and out of sight with each change of Modes. The animals he understood, but why the variation in plants? Probably because the animals grazed on them, so changes in animal life meant changes in plant life. Since adjacent Modes tended to be similar, if he saw a dramatic shift in plant life, he would have to be extremely cautious about the animal life, even if he didn’t see it. Because it was probably nearby and the next Mode might put him abruptly face to face with it.

The glimpses he got of animals were not reassuring. There seemed to be an increasing number of dragons, and they were getting larger. They seemed to be squeezing other animals out, almost as if—

Suddenly he was caught in a net. He struggled to get free of it, but it hauled him into the air and held him. It was an animal trap, triggered by touching. He hadn’t seen it because it had not existed until he stepped into its Mode, moving swiftly.

He drew his sword and started cutting the threads of it. Who could have set up this trap, and why? The second question was readily answered: it was to snare wildlife alive, probably for domestication or later slaughter. The setters of the snare had not figured on a Mode traveler passing through.

He completed his cuts, sheathed the sword, and let himself down through the hole he had made. He landed on the ground—and discovered himself facing a dragon. A big one. A maneater.

The creature had evidently come up while Darius was cutting himself free. He decided to risk a conjuration, because this one was big enough to eat him. He activated his icon and moved it back away.

There was a bit of wrenching in the gut, but his body did not move. He had passed beyond the range of magic already.

Well, he could escape the monster simply by stepping into the next Mode; that was what he should have done first. He started to move—and the dragon leaped.

Darius found himself on his back, with the dragon’s snoot at his face. The monster could bite off his head in a moment!

Then a monkey appeared. The creature had another net, a smaller one. It put this net over Darius’ head, then yanked it up as the dragon backed off. Darius had to sit up, then stand, with the net covering him from head to knees. The monkeys were in charge of this Mode?

The monkey held a cord connected to the net and walked to the side. When Darius tried to step toward the next Mode, the dragon growled and breathed down the back of his neck. That monster could snap him up in an instant; dragons had hunting reflexes. He had to walk exactly where the monkey indicated.

The path veered to the side, but the monkey guided him in a straight though not level line up a bank and into a forest of giant ferns. The dragon followed slowly. The way was marked by dabs of color on the ferns or ground.

They knew! They knew he was crossing Modes, and they were keeping him in this one!

He figured it out as he was required to scramble across the irregular terrain, hewing to the line that was this Mode’s intersection with his route. They had set out nets to snare wild creatures, but also to catch Mode travelers. They could recognize the latter by their odd clothing or alien nature. Then they brought the captives in, confining them to the narrow channel. As long as they were alert, they could do it.

And what did they do with their special captives? He was surely about to find out! He doubted he was the first one; the marked special path showed that. It wasn’t regularly used. Probably there were many such, so that they could bring in captives from whatever nets they were found in. With ordinary captures, they used the ordinary paths. So this wasn’t a common occurrence, but neither was it unknown.

In due course they traveled down a sloping field and to a collection of artificial structures. They weren’t exactly houses, but they weren’t exactly anything else. They had sloping upper surfaces, and walls made of bars.

Most of them were empty, but some did contain creatures. It was hard to see well, because one structure tended to obscure his view of another, but there seemed to be a wide variety of animals and birds. One animal had eight legs and long antennae, but also a cowlike udder, which suggested that it was a mammal, not a huge insect. One bird had four wings, translucent and extended like those of a dragonfly, but it also had a beak and feathers.

This divergence of animal creatures intrigued him despite his present peril. As far as he knew, the animals of Colene’s Mode were similar to those of his own, so he had assumed that they differed no more than did the people. He had evidently been mistaken, because he was only part of the way between their two Modes, and had seen no people and a wide divergence of animals.

Certainly it smelled of animals! The odor thickened as they approached the structures, becoming stifling. But he had no way to escape it. He did his best to tune it out. After all, it had not smelled nice in Colene’s shed, because of the presence of the fecal pot, but that had not bothered him or apparently her when they were together.

Colene: how he hoped he would reach her! Whether he lived or died was less important to him than whether he was reunited with her. If only he had brought her with him! But he had been put off by the realization of her youth and her depressive nature, and had blundered terribly.

He was brought along his straight line until it intersected one of the structures. Now he saw that the thing was fairly large. Indeed, large enough for him to step inside. The monkey put him in, took his pack, sword, and all his clothing, and carried them out to the dragon. The bars slammed down, sealing him in. This was a cage!

Dragon and monkey departed. Darius looked around. He was now naked, but the air was warm and he wasn’t in physical discomfort. There was straw or the equivalent on the floor, and a pot whose function he recognized from recent experience. That was all.

He checked the bars of his cage. They were set close enough together so that he could not get past them, and were firmly anchored in the floor. They seemed to be of wood or something similarly hard, perhaps cut from the stems of the big ferns. The floor under the hay was of the same substance, seamless. So was the roof. Whatever it was, it was too strong for him to bend or break. His sword might have chopped through it, but they had been smart enough to deprive him of that, as well as his food.

He tried to peer beyond his cage, but all he could see was other cages, all empty. Evidently recent trapping in this particular slice of the Mode had not been good.

But he had been caught! What was he to do? If he didn’t get out of here soon, not being able to complete his mission might be the least of his problems. The monkeys could be building the fires for a roast.

He sat on the straw. If he got any chance, he would dive out of the cage and into the next Mode. Better to be naked and free than risk recapture by trying to recover his clothes. But he doubted that he would get the chance.

At least now he had a notion why so few ever returned from the Modes! It wasn’t that they got lost, but that they were caught and dispatched. It had not occurred to him that there could be predators among the Modes, but it was all too clear now.

There was a stir beyond the cages. He peered out, and saw a figure approaching, followed by a dragon. It was a human being!

Indeed, it turned out to be a woman. She seemed to be about forty and not unhandsome, but there were deep lines of sadness or weariness on her face. She wore what might once have been a good conventional shirt, its buttons crossing from left shoulder to right hip in the style for the unmarried, but its color had long since faded to gray and it had been patched many times. Her skirt was evidently homemade from native material, puffing out from her hips and extending to the calves; her original one must have worn out. Her feet were in sandals, and were filthy, the toenails growing down and around in a manner that might be practical in a wilderness for protection against abrasions, but was detestable aesthetically. Her hair was long and somewhat unkempt. As if maintaining appearances was pointless here. Surely that was true!

She carried his clothing, which was in a tangle. She came to stand outside his cell, staring at him. Darius would have been uneasy about this at the best of times; he was even less at ease now.

“Ung,” she said, and passed the wad of clothing through the bars. She set his pack on the ground beside her. “Ung, ung!” She made motions as of dressing.

Human but not of his culture, obviously. Darius said nothing because it seemed pointless. He untangled his clothing and quickly put it on.

“Ung,” she said. “Ung pretend ung you ung ung don’t ung understand.”

It was his turn to stare. Words came through clearly amidst the nonsense syllables. There was no doubt: she spoke his language, and wanted to conceal that fact from the captors. That probably meant she was on his side!

“Ung?” he asked, scratching his head.

The woman turned to the dragon and said something. The dragon exhaled steamy breath and settled down for a snooze.

“Play dumb,” the woman said. “Look blank. I am testing you for responses to see whether we can learn to communicate. The dragon doesn’t understand the words, but he is watching you. If you give me away, we both are dead.”

Darius shook his head in feigned bafflement. “Ung?”

“You are from my Mode, or close to it,” she said. “I can tell by your clothing and supplies. Look to my right if you mean yes, and to my left to indicate no. Make no other responses, except obvious ones.” She twitched her right and left hands as she spoke, clarifying the signals. “Do you understand?”

“Ung?” he said, looking to her right.

“That is agreement. Now indicate disagreement.” He did not move his body, but he glanced to her left.

“Good.” She stood straight and made a grand gesture of pointing to herself. “Me Prima.”

Darius had to grab onto the bars for support. Prima! The would-be female Cyng of Hlahtar he had promised to look for! Just like this he had found her!

Actually it made sense. She would have been trapped the same way he had been, and probably many others. She must have proved useful to her captors, so they had kept her alive.

“Me Prima,” she repeated, touching herself again.

This time he responded more appropriately. “Me Darius,” he said, touching himself. Establishing names was elementary; he had done it with Colene. But he realized that it was important not to let the captors know that he was from the same Mode as she, and that he knew of her.

“Listen closely. The dragons govern this Mode. They have hunted most other species to extinction and are desperate for new creatures to prey upon, because this is their nature. They know about the Modes, but can not travel between them. They are hoping to capture a Mode traveler who can give them the secret. Failing that, they will do what they can to restock this Mode with prey. We must work together to escape. If we do not, they will breed you to me to produce prey they hope will be more of a challenge to hunt. Will you cooperate with me?”

Darius looked firmly to the right.

“They will not let you have your sword. They will let you have your food. Magic is not operative here. Do you have anything that might be used as a weapon that is not obvious as such?”

Darius had to think about that. Then he got a bright notion.

He glanced right.

She squatted and began drawing things out from his pack. “Identify the things in your language,” she told him. “I have to appear to be making progress. Let your eyes tell me what your weapon is.”

She held up a package of beans. “Beans,” he said.

“Beans,” she repeated, and set the package down. She brought out a loaf of bread.

“Bread.” He remembered how he had been confused by what had turned out to be white (not brown) sliced (not whole) bread in Colene’s Mode.

“Bread,” she repeated. So it went, item after item. Then, near the bottom, there was a tiny box with slivers of wood inside.

“Matches,” he said, looking to the right. This was the box he had gotten from Colene and brought back with him Matches were much like magic, but were actually science, and they fascinated him.

“Matches,” she repeated, this time truly unfamiliar with the term. “What are they?”

“Ung,” he said, holding out his hand. The watching dragon made a warning puff of steam.

She handed him one match.

Darius held it by the business end and poked into his mouth with the bare-wood end. He was using it to pick his teeth!

Both the woman and the dragon looked disgusted. Evidently they had anticipated something more significant.

He reached, signaling for another. The woman gave him one more match. He stuck this in the other side of his mouth.

“This is a weapon?” she asked as she rummaged in his pack for what remained.

He glanced again to the right. Then he put the matches in a pocket.

After the woman completed the pack inventory, Darius risked telling her. “Ung. Kublai. Ung ung.”

Now she was the one who reeled. Oh, yes, she knew that name! She had loved Kublai, twenty years ago.

She recovered. “When can you use your weapon?” she asked. “At any time?”

He looked to the right.

“Can it kill dragons?”

He looked left.

“Better in privacy?”

He looked right.

“I will come to you at night, to feed you. I can not open the cage; only a dragon can do that. But they will put me in with you if I ask, because they are aware that breeding is not instantaneous with strangers. Can you use your weapon then?”

He looked right.

She verified some words, holding up things they had identified from the pack. Then she departed. The dragon glanced at him, then settled back to sleep.

Darius lay on the straw and closed his own eyes. He had a lot to assimilate!

DUSK came, and then darkness. Prima came, carrying not only his pack with its food, but a bottle of water. She said something to the dragon, and the barred gate swung open. She stepped inside, and the gate closed. How it worked Darius couldn’t fathom, except that it was under the control of the dragon. If magic didn’t work here, there must be some other type of force. The dragons must have used it to establish dominance in their Mode, just as humans had used magic to achieve power in his own Mode.

“Now you must eat and drink,” she told him, making broad gestures of food-to-mouth so that the dragon could see that she was doing her job. “And after that, if I am to remain here with you, I must make obvious attempts to seduce you, so that the dragon will know that we are potentially breedable. I realize that this will be distasteful to you because I am too old and unattractive, but our lives are at stake, so I ask you to behave in a manner the dragon will find reasonable.”

“Ung,” he said, taking bread from her. He certainly was hungry!

“As I interpret it, all you need to do to escape this Mode is to step into the next, which is just beyond this cage. If I am in direct contact with you at that time, I should be able to accompany you. This is because it is my home Mode too; were it not, I would be unable to join you regardless of our contact. We shall have to maintain contact continuously thereafter, because I fear I will slip away when we lose it, and be lost in infinity.”

“Ung,” he said around his mouthful. He saw how this could get complicated, but if the alternative was to be trapped here, it was necessary.

“I believe that once I emerge at the anchor site, I will be secure,” she continued. “So I will ask you to conduct me there. I realize that this will delay whatever mission you are on, but perhaps I can provide you with information that will facilitate your mission, and in this manner make up for it. I think, for example, I can enable you to avoid similar capture in the future.”

He looked to her right, indicating his interest. It had become obvious that he had entered the Virtual Mode woefully unprepared.

“Now, how do you propose to use your weapon?” she inquired. “I confess to being baffled how those two toothpicks can hurt anything.”

“They make fire,” he murmured. “I will burn the straw, and burn through the wooden bars. It will also distract the dragons.”

“Fire!” she repeated, surprised. “But a pyro spell won’t work here.”

“This is not magic.” He spoke into his bread, so that the dragon could not see him or hear him. He hoped. “All I’m concerned about is how long it will take to burn through the bars. If the fire is too big, I’ll be burned too; if too small, the dragons will put it out too soon.”

“Correct. Here is a better way: start the fire and feign sleep. I will scream to be released. When the gate opens, you must launch yourself out, and sweep me with you across the boundary.”

Darius was impressed. That did seem to be a better way to do it. Risky, of course, but probably less so than his imperfect notion. “Then let’s do it,” he murmured. “Say when.”

“Finish eating. Eliminate. Settle down to sleep. I will join you, but you will not yet be responsive. I will tell you when to make the fire.”

He glanced significantly to her right. Then he proceeded to stuff himself, for if their escape was effective, it might be some time before they had another chance to eat. She ate some with him, evidently trying to spark his interest in her.

His experience with Colene assisted him with the next stage. He did have to defecate. Prima turned her back, and he did it on the pot. The dragon seemed to be snoozing, but he knew better than to trust that.

He formed a bed of straw and lay down on it. Prima brought some more straw and joined him. Now he smelled her body odor over that of the environment. She must not have washed in years! But probably that was not her fault; the captors seemed to have little concern for the hygiene of their captives.

She made as if to take off his clothing, and he demurred with a curt gesture even the dragon could not mistake. Then she removed her worn shirt, showing her haltered bosom. It was a good one, considering her age. She took his hand and brought it to her halter, and he drew his hand back, but with less force than before. Thus the dragon could see that she was making some progress.

However, he was evidently tired, and dropped into his feigned sleep without being seduced. Prima dug in his pack and brought out his blanket-pac, unfolding it and spreading it over him. He had feared that its magic would be inoperative here, so that its thinness would offer no protection against the cooling night, but it remained effective. Then she rested quietly beside him, seeming a bit frustrated but patient.

He had almost fallen asleep for real when she murmured, “Now.”

He had the two matches in his hand. He brought one slowly out, his arm motion screened by his body and hers, and struck it against the hard wood under the straw. First it sputtered, then it caught. He moved it under more straw, setting fire to it. He nudged the straw away from him so that he would not be burned. He was in luck; there was a slight breeze, and it not only fanned the nascent flame; it moved it away from him.

Prima waited until the fire was well established. Then she screamed. It was a truly piercing sound; it was all he could do to maintain his pretense of sleep. Would the dragon believe that the scream hadn’t jolted him awake?

Prima ran for the other end, shouting in what seemed to be the dragon language and pointing back at the fire. The dragon’s head snapped up, the big eyes blinked, and the gate swung open to let her out.

Darius scrambled up and caught the strap of his pack as he launched himself after her. The gate began to swing closed, but Prima wasn’t clear of it, and it couldn’t complete the motion. Then he came through, sweeping his free arm around her waist, and rammed onto the side of the cage.

The dragon had been caught by surprise, and had made the mistake they had hoped for, but now its hunter reflexes came into play. It leaped forward, intercepting the two of them and shoving them back and down with its nose. But Darius clambered over its nose, lifting Prima with him, and they tumbled to the other side of the dragon. The dragon turned to snap at them, its jaws opening—and they rolled into the next Mode. It looked the same as the other, but there was no fire and no dragon. Only the light of the moon and stars. It was as if the fire and dragon had ceased to exist. Actually they had never existed, in this Mode.

“Don’t let go of me!” Prima gasped.

He had been about to. Instead he tightened his grip around her waist. “Are you sure we have to maintain contact if we’re not actually crossing Modes?”

“No, but it’s a strong likelihood. I’ve been trapped for twenty years; I don’t want to be trapped for the next twenty.”

“But I have pulled you into my Virtual Mode,” he argued. “You should stay on it now.”

“We must talk,” she said. “Until then, do not let go of me. Let’s get away from here; there are surely other dragons, because this is an adjacent Mode, almost identical to the one we left.”

Sure enough, he saw the outline of a dragon approaching. It looked just like the one they had escaped, but it was beyond several cages. They needed to get away from this entire set of Modes.

Arms around one another’s waist, like lovers, they walked into the next Mode. The dragon vanished. They continued to walk, until the cages shrank and finally disappeared. The landscape looked the same, in the dim moonlight, but there was now no sign of artificial structures.

“We had better tie ourselves together,” he said as they paused. “Otherwise we could lose contact by accident, if we are surprised.” He set down the pack, wondering how to put it on without letting go of her.

“There’s no cord in your pack, and I have none,” she said.

“Maybe I can tear off a sleeve of my shirt, and use that,” he suggested. Why hadn’t he thought to carry a good length of cord? Its advantage was obvious.

“You may need that to protect your arm from the sun.” She considered a moment. “I have something. Put your arms around my waist.”

He did so. She turned within his grasp, so that she faced away from him. Then she leaned forward, reached behind her, up inside her shirt, and untied her halter. The front of it, loosened, dropped down against his hands. She reached inside the front and hauled it out, leaving him with her breasts on his hands. He was too startled to react. This woman was of his Mode?

They linked arms, his left to her right, hands clasping forearms, the halter bound around the wrists in the middle. It wasn’t ideal, and if they fell they could wrench their arms, but they were unlikely to let go by accident.

“As I recall, it requires more than a day to walk to your anchor, and this is night,” she said. “It will be better to find a secure place to sleep.”

“That may be a problem. I have lost my sword, and have only one match left. A high place may be subject to predator birds, and a low place to predator reptiles. I saw each kind during my journey out.”

“Yes. We had better make weapons. I would also like to bathe.”

That was a relief! Her odor had been bad in the cage; now it was overwhelming. The folk of his Mode were normally scrupulous about cleanliness; he was glad to learn that she remained true to form.

“I passed a mountain lake not far back.”

“Were there trees nearby?”

“Yes. Not any variety I know.”

“Let’s go there first. Then perhaps we can hide in a tree, after we talk.”

She seemed to have a better notion how to proceed than he did, so he agreed. He realized that this was good experience; what he was learning now should help him rescue Colene.

They moved on to the lake, proceeding carefully and quietly in the darkness. When they reached it they stripped, but remained linked. More correctly, they remained linked and tried to strip. Their shirts could not pass their linked arms. So they walked into the chill water and washed in tandem, he standing in front with his left arm reaching back, she with her right arm reaching forward. She held his shirt and other clothing while he washed. Then he held the bundle of their clothing while she stepped forward and washed. He felt distinctly awkward putting his hands on her shirt, halter, skirt, and diaper, but it was necessary. This reminded him that Colene had not used diapers; she had had almost sheer panties that barely sufficed for concealment. But she normally wore trousers, so that her undergarment could never be seen by accident. The purpose of diapers, of course, was to cushion the secret region from gaze and touch, making it unfeasible to see the shape of it. Now he was seeing everything, in a manner normally reserved only for one about to undertake sexual contact. But this was a very special situation.

Unable to do much else, he stared mostly into darkness while she washed. After she got the caked grime loose, she rinsed her hair, and though it remained tangled, it assumed better color. It was not proper of him, but linked as he was to her, it was difficult for him not to glimpse her body in the moonlight. He saw that she was lean rather than plump, but her posterior was well rounded and her breasts were of adequate mass. Kublai had said she was not a pretty woman—no, he had said she was not remarkable in appearance or personality, which wasn’t quite the same—and that was true. But she had evidently had the stamina to survive twenty years of captivity and retain her ability to speak her native language, and to act promptly to escape when the opportunity presented itself. That spoke well for her personality, and in the appropriate apparel her body would be attractive enough. Perhaps he had been comparing her to a young beauty, such as Colene, which was unfair.

In moments they were both shivering. They came out and shook themselves. Their clothing was dry, but they wanted to keep it that way. “We must hug for warmth until we dry,” she said.

He was constrained to agree. They embraced face to face, their linked arms somewhat awkwardly to the side. He was too cold to be sexually stimulated; he was just glad for her warmth.

When they were dry enough, they put their dirty clothes back on. They scrounged for some sticks, but not for a fire; these were makeshift weapons. Then they sought a suitable tree with branches both big enough and high enough to enable them to settle comfortably above the ground. That should protect them from nocturnal ground animals, and the foliage might shield them from great birds.

It was awkward climbing with their arms linked, and awkward getting comfortably settled. Finally they sat facing each other, with their backs braced against the large forking branches of the tree, his feet wedged against the knots to the side of the opposite branch, her legs lifted and spread so that her knees embraced his waist while she sat partly on his thighs. His inadequate blanket covered their shoulders.

“I could wish that I were younger,” she murmured, “for this position would surely drive you mad.”

He remembered how Colene’s naïveté about the spread of her clothed legs had nearly done so. “You are not old enough to avoid that risk. Fortunately it is too dark to see.”

“I thank you for that courtesy. However, you have seen my body. Please answer with candor: do I retain sexual appeal?”

“Yes, but—”

“I mean, allowing for my age, of course.”

“That was not the nature of my qualification. I am a man of honor.”

“I thank you again, Darius. You are very much a man of my culture.”

He tried to tilt his head back, so as to rest it against the branch behind him, but that was awkward. “Please do not misunderstand. I think I must put my head forward, on your shoulder, to sleep.”

“Understood. We shall embrace as necessary to be comfortable.” She put her head on his left shoulder, and he put his on her left shoulder. They linked their free arms to complete the solidity of the position. Thus braced, it would be possible to sleep safely, and their closeness helped shield them from the cold. It was far from ideal, in several respects, but feasible.

“We shall sleep soon, but now we must talk,” Prima said, as if they had not been doing so all along. “You have been most patient and accommodating. Please, if you will, tell me of your mission here. You surely have most pressing reason to risk the Modes.”

“I made a spot trip to a far Mode, searching for a woman I could both love and marry,” he said. “I am the current Cyng of Hlahtar. I think you know the problem.”

“Indeed I do! I think you know mine too.”

“Yes. Kublai wanted most sincerely to learn of your fate. He agreed to take my place if I would search for you as I went.”

She was silent for a moment. Then she asked: “What is Kublai’s present feeling for me?”

“I think it is not love. He had had to marry many times, and discard all his wives, until he retired. Now he has married for love, at last. But he loved you once, and remains sorry it could not be worked out. I think he holds his emotion in abeyance, expecting either to learn nothing of you, or of your death. Now of course, while he takes my place, he has had to divorce his love-wife and make her his love-mistress. She is not pleased with that.”

“I know the feeling.”

“Yes, of course.” Not only had she not been able to marry for love, she had not been able to assume the post for which she was plainly qualified.

“If I return, would he marry me?”

“But the Cyngs of Hlahtar don’t marry for love!”

She merely lifted her head and looked at him in the darkness.

Embarrassed, he gave her the answer. “Yes, I believe he would. Your power would make no other wife necessary. But I understood that this was not a role you sought.”

“It was not. But I had time to think, in twenty years, and I realized that such a marriage was a better use for me than what I had with the dragons.”

“What did they make you do?”

“Very little. They were saving me for the chance arrival of another of my kind. Then I was either to discover his secret of Model travel, or to breed with him.”

“But there is no secret!” he protested. “The Chip must be set from the anchor point.”

“So I tried to tell them. They were not sure they could believe me. So I helped feed the captives, until their Modes expired and they could be freed.”

“Freed?”

“There is no sport in hunting a caged creature. But one that has fled the cages and gone out into the wilds can be a pleasant challenge. I was smart enough never to do that, so I survived.”

“I am glad you did. I think I would not have escaped without your help.”

“I did it for myself as much as for you. But now we must ascertain where we stand.”

“I thought we had done that.”

“No. What do you suppose the chances of your encountering me were?”

“Obviously good enough!”

She shook her head. Her hair moved against his own. “That is not the case. There are an infinite number of Modes. How did we meet in one?”

“I was crossing Modes, until I was trapped in the same way you were. Thus there was no chance involved.”

“Not so. Infinity is broader than that. There are not only an infinite number of types of Modes, there are an infinite number of each type. An infinite number of Cyngs setting out in search of love. An infinite number of dragons trapping travelers. How is it that you encountered me, when there are an infinite number of variations of you and an infinite number of variations of me?”

That had not occurred to him. “Perhaps it was a fortunate chance.”

“I think not.”

“What are you saying?”

“I am saying that we did not meet.”

He lifted his head, startled. “This is humor?”

“No. I shall explain. We are from different Modes.”

“But we speak the same language! We have the same conventions! And I know of you, and you know of Kublai! Our Modes match!”

“No. Our Modes are very similar, but they surely do not match. That is why I must remain bound to you until I reach your anchor. Were I identical, I would not need such contact; once you drew me onto your Virtual Mode, I would remain on it, being of the substance of your universe. Were I too far removed, I would not be able to cross with you at all. But I am in between: close enough to cross with your help.”

“But perhaps you are identical,” he said.

“No. When I came close to you, and touched you, I did not step onto your Virtual Mode, though I could feel its ambience. I was one of the infinite number of near misses. So you see, there is no great coincidence in our meeting. There are infinitely more mismatches than perfect matches.”

“But then why do you want to return with me?”

“Because your Mode is also infinitely better than the alternative. At least once I am through your anchor point I will be able to remain, for your Mode will surround me far more solidly than does the Virtual Mode. A man very like the one I loved will be there. I hope he will marry me.”

“But surely you would not deceive him!”

“Surely not! I will tell him the truth, and offer him my body and my power for his disposal, as long as he wishes either.”

Darius nodded. “I think he will accept. But he will be concerned about the fate of his original Prima.”

“She may well be traveling back to the Mode of another Darius, to marry another Kublai.” Her chest heaved with silent laughter. “We are interchangeable.”

He did not laugh. “But when I return, he will vacate the post, and need no Cyng wife.”

Her face lifted again and turned to his. “If you return with your love, would you marry me then? I can do for you what I can do for him, and I would be discreet about your love-mistress.”

Darius was startled. A power of multiplication rivaling his own!

“Why, yes, I believe I would! You understand the nature of the marriage.”

“I certainly do. Consider us affianced, in that unlikely event.”

Darius sank into thought, his mind racing. He had visited the other Mode in search of exactly a woman such as this: one who could expand his power so greatly as to make it no burden, without being depleted herself. He had found her. She was not young and lovely and sweet; she was old and smart and cynical. She was not his love. She was Kublai’s lost love. What a strange solution!

“You were correct,” he remarked. “There was something to talk about.”

“Yes. There is more, but I felt it necessary to clarify our relationship as I believe it is, so as not to deceive you.”

“More?”

“I have had twenty years to ponder the nature of the Modes,” she reminded him.

“Kublai will be most interested in what you have to say.” He might be interested himself, but right now he was tired, and wanted to sleep.

“Delicately put. Let me mention just one other question, whose answer I believe I know.”

“One other thing,” he agreed.

“We are in a provocative position, physically. If this causes you to desire—”

“No. No offense.”

“That is the answer I anticipated, and prefer. We are of different generations, and thrown together only by the chance of our Mode involvement. Now we must share warmth and sleep.”

Darius was glad to agree. He relaxed, adjusting his head on her shoulder, cushioned from her shoulder bone by her shirt and hair and the thin blanket, and closed his eyes. She relaxed similarly against him, and drew him in closer for that warmth. Her bosom touched his chest, and he became conscious of her breasts as she breathed.

His imagination shaped her body into that of Colene. He did desire a woman, and Colene was that woman. But the two of them had been hedged by imperfect understandings, and it had not been right. Were they traveling the Virtual Mode, together like this, then—well, if it had been Colene who had made that offer, this time he would have accepted.

“You are thinking of your loved one,” Prima murmured.

“We are sharing minds?” he asked, surprised.

“Some. Bear in mind that I have similar power to multiply as you do; that is a kind of emotional interaction. It is stifled now because I am isolated from your Mode and your special Chip connection, but our minds will interact increasingly as we associate and are in close contact.”

“Surely true,” he agreed. His power had been stifled in the alternate Modes, but she derived from his own Mode, or one very similar. He had no experience with such interaction, because he had never before encountered a woman of her level of power.

“But mainly I felt the tenderness of your touching, and knew it was not for me.”

She was embarrassingly perceptive. “It is true.”

“If I marry Kublai, I will try to pretend he still loves me. I hope that at least he desires me.”

“He has a young and beautiful and attentive wife,” he said. “She is Koren. I impressed on her the need to be unmarried from the Cyng of Hlahtar, and she hates me. She will hate you, if you evoke his desire.”

Her body stiffened, then relaxed. “True. I thank you for that reminder. I have no right.”

Evidently she had been quite lonely, trapped in the dragon’s Mode. She had loved Kublai, and perhaps still loved him, having had neither satisfaction nor any other man to dream of. She could represent disaster for Kublai’s love life. Yet she had a power that would be invaluable to any Cyng of Hlahtar, himself included.

“If I may make a suggestion—”

“By all means.”

“Marry Kublai, but take a lover. Make it obvious. Then it will be seen that the marriage is purely convenience.”

“That is good advice,” she said sadly. Then she was silent, and they drifted to sleep.

IN the morning they were both quite stiff and uncomfortable. It occurred to him that this was indeed a provocative position, but that even had it been Colene here, it would have become relatively unexciting in this situation.

They unkinked their legs, and Prima got her skirt decorously down so that her diapers no longer showed, which was a relief. They worked their way down to the ground and stretched and exercised, jumping together to get warm.

“I must undertake natural functions,” she said. “But we can not untie our arms.”

“What exactly would happen if we did?” he asked. “I mean, if we are careful to remain right here in this Mode—or if I stepped across, I could return for you.”

“It might be all right,” she said. “But my fear is that because I am now a creature of the dragon’s Mode, and have no alternate Mode anchored in that, I would fall through the Modes and return there. That is a risk I prefer not to take.”

“Fall through? But if you do not walk across the borders—”

“If you will humor me while I relieve myself, I will explain in more detail.”

“As you wish.” He was sure she had good reason. He stood facing away while she squatted to do her business and bury it in the dirt. Then she faced away for his turn. This was another firm reminder that there was little actual romance in being bound to a woman; instead the details he would have preferred to ignore were made uncomfortably evident.

Then they made a meal from his supplies, and she explained while they waited for the water they had drunk to be assimilated. “You understand that a traveler’s tenure is limited on the Chip Mode, because he gradually loses contact. If he does not return fairly soon, he never will.”

“Yes. I call it the Virtual Mode, because it is analogous to a state of functioning by that name in the Mode where I met my love. It is presumed that a traveler has been killed or lost or trapped as you were. Now that I have learned what happened to you, I consider this presumption confirmed.”

“Virtual Mode,” she repeated musingly. “As if it is something not quite real, yet seems real. A useful concept.” She paused, evidently assimilating the notion. “However, the presumption of the reason a traveler through the Modes does not return is not confirmed. He may indeed be killed, lost, or trapped, but the mechanism is more basic than that. You are aware how you must eat and drink cautiously in foreign Modes, because you can not immediately assimilate the food.”

“Yes. I was warned, but forgot. I drank at this lake, and lost the water from my stomach. I had to do it again, and wait.”

“Precisely. Your body isolates the foreign molecules and separates them from their Mode; they must join yours. But the corollary is more dangerous: the more foreign matter you incorporate in your body, the less remains of your original substance. Eventually your body is more foreign than native, and you are unable to remain on the Virtual Mode. Then you are trapped, regardless of the rest of your situation. This happened to me.”

“But the dragons caged you!”

“Yes. They caged me and fed me, and in due course I became too much of their Mode, and could not escape. I had little choice: had I refused to eat, I would have died of starvation. They knew that. They would have done that with you. They allowed me to feed you your own food because they wished me to ingratiate myself with you. They knew that in time your food would be exhausted, and the process of assimilation into their Mode would accelerate. The very process of breathing was already beginning that.”

“Breathing!” he exclaimed.

“When you breathe, you exchange molecules of your substance with those of the air. The longer you breathe, the greater amount of foreign matter you incorporate.”

“I never thought of that! Of course you are right.”

“I have had a long time to ponder the aspects of my failure,” she said with a wan smile. “It is not surprising that some of my realizations are new to you. I would have told you this had we remained trapped, and the dragons would have noted your reaction and seen that I was impressing you.”

“And if you succeeded in winning my confidence, you might learn from me how to cross the Modes,” he said. “I see their logic. But you succeeded too well.”

“That was my desire. I think now that I could have addressed you directly without trying to mask it with nonsense syllables; the dragons are not highly vocal and do not really understand the versatility of it. But I was determined not to squander my only chance for escape.”

“So your body is mostly of the dragon Mode,” he said. “But I am aware of no actual attraction of a Mode. I do not find myself sliding back to my anchor Mode when I relax. Why should it pull you back?”

“It may not,” she admitted. “But it could work in this way: if I became separated from you, I would be unable to cross Modes toward your anchor. But I might be able to cross them toward the dragon realm, because it is as it were downhill for my present substance. Since the Virtual Mode intersects only a narrow segment of each Mode, I would inevitably stumble across and be moved back. Certainly I would not reach your anchor. My fear is that even a brief separation would prevent you from finding me, for you would not know in which Mode to search, or where within it.”

“Needle in a haystack,” he agreed.

“I do not follow your reference.”

“It is a saying I learned from Colene. They use fine needles for stitchwork, as I understand it, and should such a needle fall into a pile of hay, it would be exceedingly difficult to find.”

“That is apt. So I prefer to take no risk, being sensitized by my long captivity. I shall do my best to repay this inconvenience for you. For example, I may be able to show you how to cross Modes more safely, so that you run no further risk of being trapped.”

“That would be a great help!”

“When we reach your anchor, and I am safe there, I will fetch you mirrors. It should be easy to make a structure to hold a set of them, one reflecting to the other. When the forward mirror is poked across the border of Modes, its light could be reflected through a closed tube to the backward mirror. I think you could then see in the backward mirror the image from the forward one, not overwhelmed by the images of the Mode in which you stood.”

Darius was intrigued by the concept. “If light can be reflected across the border, why can’t we just look across?”

“I think we could if we were not attuned to the Mode in which we stand. We need to isolate our sight from that, just as we need to isolate our flesh from it if we wish to depart it. Perhaps I am mistaken. It is a concept I played with, and I would like to discover whether it works.”

“I will certainly try it!” he said. “If it protects me from walking into a net, this delay will have been worth it.” Then he reconsidered. “I do not mean to imply that it is not worthwhile to rescue you.”

She laughed. “I understand perfectly!”

She surely did. She was older than he, and not beautiful (though not ugly), but she had a good mind to go with her excellent power. He was adjusting to the notion of marrying her, when he returned with Colene. That would indeed give him love and advantage in his post, though not in the same woman. It would make his foray onto the Virtual Mode a success.

Having assimilated the water, they moved on across the Modes. Darius was now conscious of a resistance in his body, as if the foreign molecules were dragging behind. But it was so slight as perhaps to be his imagination. After all, Prima, who had twenty years’ accumulation of foreign substance in her body, was having no apparent difficulty crossing. Unless it was the resistance of her substance, in contact with his, which caused the drag.

He expected their return to be slower than his original journey, but it was faster. His familiarity with the route and her eagerness to reach the anchor made for excellent progress. They did encounter a large predator at one point, but a quick dodge back across the Mode border solved that. Prima also insisted on leading the way, so that she rather than he would catch the brunt of danger. She seemed almost fearless in her cooperation.

When they reached the point at which he had diverged from the direct route, he explained, and she agreed as to the wisdom of that course. They retraced his route across the plain. When he judged they were close to his Mode, he conjured them to the dais of the Cyng of Pwer.

Then sudden doubt assailed him. “How can I be sure it’s my anchor?” he asked. “If there are an infinite number of Dariuses entering an infinite number of Virtual Modes—”

“Each should relate to his own anchor,” she said. “Your Virtual Mode slants across Modes at such an angle that three paces separate them. When you take the final three paces, you should be at the correct anchor. My case differs; I lost my Mode, so have no such orientation and must depend on yours.”

“I hope you are right,” he said.

“And if it is a different anchor, but so similar that it accepts you, and no one can tell the difference, does it matter?”

“Of course it matters! Those awaiting my return would wait in vain, for I would be in the wrong Mode!”

“But that wrong Mode would stand in the same need of your return as your own, and your return would be as beneficial to it.”

He did not feel equipped to answer that. He just hoped it was the right one.

They reached the anchor and stepped onto the marked circle.